


Of Gods and Mermen

by stuttervoice



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:56:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4450175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuttervoice/pseuds/stuttervoice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akashi is just a simple god living his (immortal) life when he stumbles across an injured merman at the docks one day. Life gets a bit more interesting after that</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Gods and Mermen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sh_04e](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sh_04e/gifts).



> I ended up loving this idea too much to not write it, so. Also, all-powerful god? I don't think so. Akashi's just a dork.

When you think of gods, you think of almighty beings ruling from the sky, or maybe from some palace you can’t see, or something of the sort. Generally, you don’t really think of them having a small shrine a few kilometers out from a village, and that shrine being the place that they live. 

Well. You’ve never thought of Akashi. 

Most gods don’t have a human name, but he’d picked Seijuurou out as his metaphorical ‘first name.’ In reality, anyone who knows/worships him addresses him by Akashi. That’s okay. He just wanted to try something human for once. 

In Japan, most gods do, in fact, live at their shrines. It’s so that they can keep track of their worshipers or the people who come to them to make wishes. Obviously, there are some wishes that they cannot grant, but they do their best within the rules. 

Akashi is a rather minor (put an emphasis on _minor_ ) god, but that doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t like the idea of hundreds or thousands of people knowing his name. Of course, he would appreciate a few more followers—with only sixty or so people who know of him, a god has to worry about fading completely out of memory. He supposes it wouldn’t be so bad; it’s not like there’s anything interesting in this world. 

There’s always his friends, he supposes, but they’d probably get on fine without him. (Murasakibara seriously needs more followers, though. He really should stop making the air in his shrine so ominous and uneasy.) 

Since Akashi doesn’t have very many followers, he prefers to spend his time wandering than cooped up in his shrine. There’s only so many times that you can clean the rocks in your small pond before it gets tiresome. (The rocks, because cleaning the shrine is pointless as it’s already spotless. Not his work, but Midorima’s whenever he comes over agitated by Kise’s or Aomine’s latest antics.) 

Today, he’s heading out to the edge of Kyoto. By edge, he means he’s going to the docks to smell the sea air and watch the boats come in and go back out. 

As Akashi finally arrives at the docks, he slips effortlessly between the humans. Despite his crimson hair and distinguishable red eyes, hardly anyone notices him, except for maybe small children and animals. There are also other supernatural creatures, though Akashi hardly runs into those… 

Speak of the devil. 

There’s a boy floating in the water near the dock, unnoticed by most humans. Akashi can’t be sure if he’s camouflaging himself or not because he spotted him right away. His grip on one of the stakes holding up the dock is weak, and the shade of his skin is too pale to mean anything good. When he moves, the water stirs, and Akashi catches the faintest glimmer of something brilliantly blue in the water. 

A merman, of all things. 

Merpeople aren’t uncommon, but they definitely don’t come this close to humans. Either this boy is suicidal, or… 

Or maybe he can’t leave. 

Akashi makes his way over to him, each step purposeful. The boy notices him too late, only jerking his head up when Akashi is already kneeling next to him. His azure eyes widen in shock, and he makes to swim away, but Akashi reaches out and grabs an arm to stop him. The redhead can tell that he’s biting back an angry retort, and that he’s trying not to struggle so that they dock workers don’t notice abnormal movements in the water. Akashi has to give him credit for being smart, at least. 

He’s wary of him—Akashi can tell that even without looking at the small fins flaring out behind his ears. Akashi looks him up and down, but it would seem his gills are lower on his body, probably around his abdomen area. Something is amiss here, though. He’s seen mermaids and mermen here before, but none of them look like him. He looks like he belongs in a tropical area, or even somewhere else. 

“What are you doing here?” He finally asks, and the merman’s brow furrows. For a second, he worries that he can’t understand him, but then, 

“Captured…” It’s one word, a bit awkward like he isn’t familiar with the language, which makes sense. Merpeople have their own dialect depending on the region they live in. If they can speak a human language, it’s actually quite impressive. 

But Akashi can understand what he’s implying from that one word. In the unfortunate event that someone spots one of them, they’re hunted for their rare beauty. Supernatural beings aren’t accepted in the human world, but they definitely know of them. Only a small percentage actually believe they exist, but that small percentage would do anything to get their hands on them.

Akashi looks at the boy again before asking his next question. "Where are you from? And how long have you been here? You don’t look well.”

The boy gives him a look that is somewhere along the lines of ‘thanks, I didn’t notice.’ “Far,” he finally says, after some thinking. Fear flashes in his eyes for a moment. “A place with freshwater… And I have been here four sunsets.”

Well, that explains it. The saltwater must be affecting him badly. Add to that that he probably hasn’t had anything proper to eat the whole time he’s been here… Akashi recalls the small pond at his shrine and decides that it’s better than nothing. Besides, it’s freshwater. He can ask Midorima for help later. 

“I have a pond with freshwater. It’s not much, but it’s better than the sea.” When the boy hesitates, Akashi tries again. “You’ll die if you stay here, or you might even be captured again. Let me help you. I promise I’m not trying to hurt you.” 

That seems to seal the deal. He relaxes, reminding Akashi that he’s still holding him by the arm, and makes a downward gesture with his free hand. “I… net,” he says, his eyes silently imploring for him to understand. It hits Akashi. The reason he’s been just floating around by the docks isn’t because he’s weak but because he’s still tangled in something. 

How did he even manage to escape the humans? 

Akashi looks around and notices that their part of the dock has gone quiet, because the workers are taking their break. “Can you breathe okay if I take you out of the water?” He asks, reaching out for his other arm. The boy hesitantly places his hand in his, and Akashi is fascinated by the webbing between his fingers. He’s never been able to see a merman up close before. 

“Ten minutes,” he nods. Akashi assumes that’s the amount of time it’s safe for him to be out of the water. The redhead leans down and coaxes the merman’s arms around his neck (Midorima would surely have a fit if he saw this because it looks like Akashi is about to be pulled down by the boy) before gripping him around the upper part of his torso, making sure that he isn’t covering or hurting his gills by doing so. The boy is surprisingly light despite that fact that he might be around Akashi’s height if he were human, and as Akashi lifts him onto the dock, he sees a brown net tangled around his otherwise beautiful tail, making tears in his fins. It’s bleeding even as Akashi sets him down, and it makes Akashi wince. He’s been living like this for over four days? 

As Akashi pulls out the knife he always keeps with him, he attempts to distract the boy from the pain. “What’s your name?” He asks, lightly grabbing the end of the net and making the boy wince. 

Humans can be cruel. 

“Kuroko… Tetsuya,” he answers, haltingly, and hisses when Akashi moves the net the wrong way in an attempt to position it at an angle where he won’t be cutting his tail when he cuts away the net. Akashi murmurs an apology, but he’s curious. Tetsuya says he’s from a faraway place, but he has a Japanese name. Perhaps his parents were from Japan, or he lived here when he was younger. It would make sense, considering he understands what Akashi is saying. 

“My name is Akashi. If I were to have a first name, it would be Seijuurou, but I don’t, so,” he shrugs a little before cutting into the net, making quick work of the tough material with his perfectly sharpened blade. Tetsuya breathes a sigh of relief at the lack of pressure, but Akashi is concerned about his fins. The tears in it are bad, and will surely leave scar tissue. He wonders if Tetsuya will be able to swim alright with his mangled fins. 

They’ll have to cross that bridge when they get there.

It’s been two minutes, which means Akashi has eight minutes to get him back to his shrine. He could just have him go back in the water for extra time, but the saltwater isn’t good for him in the first place. He’d better hurry. Normally, he could teleport back to his shrine without complication, but he can’t with an injured merman with him. He’ll have to take short hops back. 

Akashi takes off his jacket and wraps it around Tetsuya’s tail since he doesn’t have anything else to staunch the bleeding (he hopes it doesn’t poorly affect Tetsuya to have his jacket wrapped around his wound, but the blue-haired boy seems fine with it), and he gingerly picks him up in his arms. 

“Why do you have a first name but not?” He asks, brow creasing again as he realizes that he didn’t word it right. It seems that he knows the language well enough, since he understands Akashi, but it’s just hard for him to word correctly. Akashi wishes he could speak in his language, but he doesn’t even know which dialect that would be. 

“I made that first name for myself because I wanted to try being human for once,” Akashi says, dismissively, as he adjusts Tetsuya in his arms again.

Tetsuya stares at him in clear surprise. “You are not human?” He asks, bewildered. Akashi spares a glance down at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“Of course not. I wouldn’t have spotted you so easily if I were just a human.” With that, Akashi takes his first teleport, drawing a startled yelp from Tetsuya. It isn’t as hard as he thought it would be, and he lands safely on a tree branch. He peers into the distance. They’re still quite far from his shrine, and they’re running out of time. Akashi teleports again.

It takes three more hops, but they finally arrive at his shrine. It’s, thankfully, empty. Exhausted, Akashi hurries over to the pond, gently letting Tetsuya down. Tetsuya glances at him, obviously wanting to question him, but the freshwater must be tempting him because he keeps glancing at it. 

“Go ahead. You should get the saltwater out of your system. I’ll see if I can find something that will work to heal your tail, or if I can get some food,” Akashi says. Tetsuya hesitates, before nodding, and he dives under the surface of the pond. Like Akashi said, it’s small, but it’s big enough for him to be able to go completely under and swim in circles to explore. Akashi feels his lips quirk in a smile before he walks away to find supplies.

* * *

 

Since Tetsuya is a mermaid, human medicines probably won’t work on him, resulting in Akashi only being able to return with food. He wasn’t sure what Tetsuya’s diet is, so he ended up buying an assortment of things, ranging from meat to vegetables. (At least he has money to buy these things, unlike Aomine, who uses all of his money on perverted magazines. Aomine ends up begging for food from Midorima, who, despite his exterior, cares too much about them to let any of them starve, even Aomine.) 

Akashi kneels beside the pond and spots Tetsuya resting in the shade of one of the bigger rocks. He’d like to let him rest, but he needs to treat his tail and get some food into him. Akashi changes into the pair of swim trunks he owns (normally used strictly for pond-cleaning purposes, but apparently also now for merman-treating purposes) and slips into the pond. The water comes up to waist level for him, though it’s big enough for Tetsuya and a kiddie pool for Murasakibara. He wades over to Tetsuya and taps him on the shoulder. 

Tetsuya starts, almost knocking his head on the rock behind him. When he sees Akashi, his eyes widen. “Akashi…san,” he finally greets, straightening up a little. Akashi is a bit surprised by the honorific, but decides to protest the formality later. “Why are you in the pond?”

Akashi sighs, crossing his arms. “Your tail needs to be treated, though I’m not sure how.” He looks down at his tail. Tetsuya had untied his jacket at some point, and it was drying off at the edge of the pond. It probably only hindered him when he was in the water, anyway. “I can only assume human medicine wouldn’t work…” 

Tetsuya glances at his tail before looking up at Akashi and then… The redhead’s brow furrows. “Can you… repeat that?” He asks. Tetsuya opens his mouth and makes that strange noise again—it sounds akin to the gentle flow of a river on a peaceful day. 

It must be his own language.

Akashi may be a god, but he doesn’t understand every language, especially supernatural ones. He can only assume that whatever Tetsuya is trying to tell him is a word unique to his dialect, which means that he can’t translate it into Japanese. 

It’s a shame gods weren’t built in with language translators. 

“I’m sorry, but I can’t understand you,” Akashi apologizes. Tetsuya frowns, but it seems that he expected it because he nods. He then starts looking around the pond, but if he’s hoping to find something specific, he’s out of luck. Akashi’s pond is spotless (and yes, he is proud of it). 

“Plants…” Tetsuya mumbles, mostly to himself, as he brushes a hand over the sand at the bottom of the pond. He looks up at Akashi in bewilderment. “It’s clean.”

Akashi coughs. “Yes, it is.”

Tetsuya looks like he’s deciding between being exasperated or amused. In the end, he sighs and sits down at the bottom of the pond, his eyes just clearing the water level. “No supplies,” he notes, forlornly staring at his still-bleeding tail. It looks painful, but he hasn’t voiced a complaint yet. 

Akashi sighs and reaches over to grab a grocery bag. “What kind of food do you eat?” He asks, changing the subject. He’ll deal with his tail later. For now, he should at least eat something. He isn’t sure if he needs to drink water, and even though it’s highly unlikely, Akashi bought a couple bottles of water just in case. 

Tetsuya ponders the question as if it actually warrants thinking. “Berries? And plants. I don’t eat other fish,” he says with a frown. Akashi idly wonders if they consider that cannibalism. Surely some of them must be carnivorous, though. 

Akashi digs through the bag for the fruits and vegetables and then set them on the rocks. “Do you know what these are?” He asks, watching as Tetsuya swims over to examine them, using small movements so as to not hurt his tail further. 

Tetsuya peers down at an apple, the fins behind his ears wiggling. It’s kind of cute, but Akashi doesn’t think Tetsuya will appreciate the sentiment. “Apple,” he identifies, slowly, then moves on to a plain salad Akashi bought. Tetsuya’s features scrunch up. “I don’t know what this is.” 

Akashi chuckles. “That’s okay. It’s just lettuce, but humans call it a salad. Here, try some bread. It’s made from a plant, too,” he offers, setting the loaf of bread down next to the apple. It’s a strange meal, but he should eat something. 

Tetsuya tries the salad first, and he doesn’t seem to mind it as he keeps eating it. Akashi leaves the pond to find suitable material to heal Tetsuya’s tail. Since human medicine won’t work, he should try one of those all-natural herb remedies Midorima leaves at his shrine ‘in case of emergency.’ Akashi hardly gets into any trouble, though. 

He gathers the salve, a small bit of cloth, and some medical tape since that’s the best he can do. Gauze probably won’t be that effective to keep the medicine in place, but then again, hardly anything will, since Tetsuya has to stay in the water. Maybe Akashi should just fill the pond with Midorima’s medicine. 

By the time he comes back, Tetsuya has eaten the salad, the apple, and a slice of bread. For four days gone without eating, it’s a very small meal, but Tetsuya doesn’t want to eat more food. Akashi helps him out of the pond and then sets about treating his fins. Tetsuya winces whenever he touches the bleeding area, but he doesn’t say anything. 

Until Akashi is almost done tying the makeshift bandage. “What are you?” He suddenly asks, his eyes curious. Akashi pauses, glancing up at him with a raised eyebrow. Tetsuya corrects himself. “If not a human, then…”

Ah. Akashi continues wrapping his tail. He hadn’t noticed before, but Tetsuya’s stunning aquamarine tail has bits of red woven through it. You have to look closely to see it, but it’s there. “I’m a god,” he answers, finishing tying his tail. Hopefully it’ll help the medicine soak in. 

Tetsuya’s eyes widen. “A… god?” He asks, hesitantly. It’s been a while since Akashi had to explain this to someone. He helps Tetsuya back into the pond before sitting on a rock, dangling his feet in the water as he tilts his head back to look up at the clear blue sky. 

“Yes, a god. I’m a minor god, and I’m the god of strategy. If you want to beat someone at something, you should make a wish at my shrine.” He tilts his head again, this time so that he can glance at Tetsuya from the corner of his eye. The merman looks amazed. So even mermaids and mermen knew what gods are. “I’m not too important. There are more famous gods than I. I do appreciate my small following, though. I’d cease to exist if it wasn’t for them, so I try to grant their wishes when I can.”

Tetsuya’s gaze turns troubled. “Your existence depends on your followers?” He asks. Akashi notes that his Japanese is a lot smoother than earlier. It must be because he’s been talking with Akashi. .

“Yes, it does.” When Tetsuya frowns, Akashi chuckles and reaches over to ruffle his hair. Since it’s slightly damp, it sticks up in all directions, and Akashi chuckles louder at the sight while a displeased grimace makes an appearance on Tetsuya’s face. “Don’t worry too much. I honestly doubt I’m going anywhere anytime soon.”

He relaxes a little, folding his arms on top of the rock and leaning over to look at Akashi. “Okay.” He pauses, as if searching for the right words, before he smiles—for the very first time. Akashi’s breath hitches a little. _He should smile more often._ “Thank you for helping me, Akashi-san. I’m grateful.” 

Akashi is surprised for a moment before blinking and then looking away. “You’re welcome. I only did what was right,” he mutters, a little agitated. He can’t believe it. He’s been alive for hundreds of years, and the first person he ever considers cute is a random merman he rescued from the docks. 

Unbelievable.

He’d curse the gods, but he _is_ one of them. 

_I’d better not let the others meet him. I’d never hear the end of it._

Tetsuya pushes himself up, poking Akashi’s cheek with a webbed finger. Startled, Akashi turns to him, only to find him at an uncomfortably close proximity. It doesn’t help that his eyes are sparkling with mirth. “So even gods can get embarrassed,” he says with a small laugh, and good gods, Akashi’s so screwed. Tetsuya may look cute and innocent, but he has no problem teasing a _god._

These next few weeks ought to be interesting. 

Well. He’s still cute, at least. There’s always that.


End file.
